In recent times, environmental concerns have significantly changed the manner in which liquid bearing waste is disposed of. Where such waste was once simply discarded in any manner which was most convenient, it must now be collected and transported to a processing facility where it is decontaminated in accord with a variety of federal, state and local regulatory provisions, and then transported to a governmentally approved disposal site for final elimination.
These requirements make the once simple affair very handling intensive, insofar as the waste must be put into a container for accumulation and the container then manipulated for transport, and the container must be manipulated again upon delivery at the processing site. The container must further be manipulated to empty the contents for processing, including moving of the container to the appropriate location for emptying, and possibly tipping the container for emptying into the processing apparatus. The temporarily empty container must then be moved to another location and stored until it is to be moved to another location for refilling with the waste which has been processed and otherwise decontaminated in conformity with the appropriate regulations. The refilled container must be again manipulated for loading and again transported to the final dumping site, where it is typically unloaded to await further manipulation for final dumping. The emptied container is then stored until it can be returned to its owner, who will again store it until it is put back in service, repeating the above process of transporting, manipulating, storing, etc..
Transport of the liquid bearing waste is typically accomplished by either railway or truck so that sufficiently large quantities can be accommodated to make such handling economical. Accordingly, the containers used for such waste are typically box type railway cars, in the case of railway transport, and box type roll off containers, such as those used by the Dempster Dinosaur or the like, in the case of truck transport. These known types of transport containers offer the important advantage of being able to be left behind after transport, so that the transporting vehicle of may continue productively without awaiting filling, emptying, or processing.
Unfortunately, these known methods of transporting waste impose their own requirements in terms of expensive specialized facilities and equipment. For example, in order to enable railway transport of the waste, the handling facility must be located near railroad tracks and have some network of rails for movement of the containers, with the added need for equipment to move the railway cars. Additionally, sufficient vacant track space is needed for temporary storage of the railway cars. The high cost and geographic requirements of providing a facility so equipped to accommodate railway car containers is often preclusive, and necessitates truck transport as an alternative.
Currently used means for truck transport of the liquid bearing waste likewise has significant disadvantages. For example, trucks adapted for the loading, unloading and transport of roll off containers, such as the Dempster Dinosaur, are specialized and expensive, which is likely to necessitate the special dispatch of such a vehicle when transport of such a container is necessary. Because these trucks are adapted to handle a specialized container, very often the trip to pick up such a container, or the return trip after dropping off such a container are done without a paying load, which in turn adds to fuel usage and transportation costs, since the expenses of the empty trip must be absorbed nonetheless. Another disadvantage of such transport of these containers is that the empty containers require as much space as full containers, and in the case of truck transport, often only one such container can be transported at a time.
The containers themselves in which the liquid bearing waste is transported have significant disadvantages beyond their need for specialized transport vehicles. Because the containers are specialized, they are often custom fabricated, which precludes their manufacture by modification of preexisting containers which are no longer suitable for their original purpose. Furthermore, just as the presently known containers require the same amount of space for transport whether full or empty, they require the same amount of space for storage whether full or empty. This can require considerable real estate resources, which is costly and particularly inefficient in the case of empty containers.
Another problem with these known containers is that their structures are adapted primarily for complementing their respective transport vehicles, and not for manipulation or transport after being unloaded from their vehicles. Thus it is often quite difficult to move the containers from place to place as necessary for filling, emptying or storing, and specialized equipment such as cranes are necessary to do so. Likewise, because of their structure, the containers are not suited to being tipped over by substantially unmodified common equipment, which could otherwise be the most convenient and economical means of emptying.
While nestable waste containers are known such as that taught by Bock, U.S. Pat. No. 5,022,546, such containers are heavy to transport and quite expensive to manufacture, and they do not nest within one another to a sufficient degree when empty to make storage or transport of numerous units particularly efficient. Furthermore, their construction necessitates special and expensive equipment for manipulation and dumping or emptying.
Consequently, a need exists for an improved waste container for liquid bearing waste such as sludge and ash, and means for the manipulation and management thereof.